In Pictures: Emmy Awards 2015

The biggest stars in television turned out for the 2015 Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, where Game Of Thrones emerged as the big winner - picking up 12 trophies.

Here are some of the best pictures from the show.

The cast of HBO's fantasy series Game of Thrones had plenty to celebrate, including their first ever win in the best drama series category.

The show's total of 12 awards is the most any series has won in a single year. The previous record holder was The West Wing which won nine awards at the 2000 Emmys.

Peter Dinklage was the only cast member to receive an award - for outstanding supporting actor.

On stage, he thanked the writers, his "screen partner" Lena Headey and "everyone else in the cast, which is like thousands of people".

Viola Davis made history by becoming the first black woman to win the best actress in a drama series.

She received a standing ovation for her acceptance speech, in which she said: "You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there."

Read the full speech.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus took home her sixth Emmy, this time for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series.

The star, who plays US vice president Selina Meyer, took a swipe at presidential hopeful Donald Trump in her speech.

"I think it would be appropriate at this moment to quote our political satire Veep," she said: "What a great honour it must be for you to honour me tonight".

Then she added: "Oh God, no! Donald Trump said that. It's getting trickier and trickier to satirize this stuff."

Veep's British creator Armando Iannucci (Alan Partridge, The Thick of It) accepted the show's award for outstanding comedy series from comedy legend Mel Brooks.

Comedian Tracy Morgan made a surprise return to the stage, 15 months after a fatal six-vehicle crash that left one of his best friends dead.

"It's been a long road back," he told the audience . "I suffered a traumatic brain injury that put me in a coma for eight days. When I finally regained consciousness, I was just ecstatic to learn that I wasn't the one who messed up."

He added: "Only recently I've felt like myself again, which means a whole lot of women are gonna get pregnant at the after-party!"

The star posed for photos afterwards with his wife, Megan Wollover.

After seven years of being the bridesmaid, Jon Hamm won his first ever award for playing Mad Men's dapper advertising executive Don Draper.

He opted to avoid the stairs and clamber awkwardly onstage, much to the amusement of Tiny Fey, who was handing out the award.

"It was a very odd experience," he said afterwards. "After I made my hilarious joke of climbing on the stage the way I chose to, I turned around and realised people were clapping for me.

"I was mortified."

The actor regained his composure to celebrate his victory backstage.

The show was hosted by comedian Andy Samberg, star of police station comedy Brooklyn Nine Nine.

In his opening number, he discovered how much good television he had missed out on - "So many shows, and so little time, I'm just a normal man, how can I possibly keep up?"

So, he locked himself in a "viewing bunker" bunker for a year and emerged, crazy-eyed, having watched every programme in existence.

The result: He was chosen to present the Emmys, where he promised to write a monologue of "culturally relevant but not too edgy jokes".

Uzo Aduba won her second consecutive Emmy for playing Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren on Netflix's prison drama Orange Is the New Black.

She burst into tears as she thanked the show's creator, Jenji Kohan, for casting her in the role.

"If I could say thank you a thousand times, it would not be enough," she said. "I thank you for putting belief back in my heart."

Jon Stewart won best variety talk series for The Daily Show, a month after he said goodbye to the programme.

Speaking backstage, he said if he "had known what life was like on the other side, I probably would have left sooner".

He later compared notes with his replacement, South African comedian Trevor Noah.

Amy Schumer won best sketch comedy for her taboo-busting Comedy Central show Inside Amy Schumer.

On stage, she appeared to suggest the programme would end in two years after its fifth series,

Backstage, she told reporters what was going through her mind as she accepted the prize: "I just thought, I can't wait to hug my sister, which is exactly the first thing I did.

"I was sitting in a separate spot from the writers because I'm really famous, so it was so exciting to see them all onstage. We're all such a group of dirtbags, it's really fun that we're here. I'm gonna black out."

Allison Janney got her seventh Emmy award, winning outstanding supporting actress in a comedy for the CBS comedy, Mom.

The star, whose previous wins came for political drama The West Wing, is now tied with Ed Asner for most performance Emmy wins.

American Crime star Regina King (left) won outstanding supporting actress in a mini-series, collecting her award from Taraji P Henson.

"This is just absolutely amazing," she said. "My son, Ian, the fact that I get to share this night with you, the best date in the house, oh man, you make being a mother my greatest accomplishment. I love you. Cheers."

Modern Family star Sofia Vergara put on a brave face after her show failed to win a record-breaking sixth Emmy for outstanding comedy series.

If the sitcom had won, it would have overtaken Frasier as the most successful comedy series in the history of the awards.

The actress didn't seem too bothered at losing out - tweeting a photo from the audience as she scoffed a bag of "contraband" popcorn.

Jeffrey Tambor repeated his Golden Globes success with an award for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series, for the Amazon series Transparent.

His character is a transgender woman, Maura Pfefferman, and he said it was a "privilege" and a "huge responsibility" to play the role.

"You want to do it right and lives are at stake," he said. "I know we are in the comedy category but I do believe with our stories and our humour we are moving the whole question forward.

"But when I get up in the morning or indeed when they knock on the dressing room door I go 'you gotta do this right'."

HBO's Olive Kitteridge won all the prizes in the "limited series" (mini-series) category.

Based on Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer-winning novel, it focused on the title character's interactions with the people of her small Maine town over the course of 25 years.

Stars Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins picked up acting prizes, while Jane Anderson (below) won for her writing.

Anderson, who also had credits on Mad Men, The Facts of Life, and The Wonder Years, bounded up to the stage and paid tribute to her fellow writers.

"We all face that horrible, horrible blank page - but we're here and we solved our scripts. So isn't that remarkable?" she said.

Other stars who made a splash on the red carpet included (clockwise from top left) Kerry Washington, Laura Prepon, Laverne Cox and Maggie Gyllenhaal.